Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Oh boy! Here’s where I get to show an aspect of my life in the
non-literary arts. In fact, this post is pretty much how writing occupied my
life before the filth. Momma and I used to design, cut-and paste (scissors and
glue) my promotional materials and exhibit catalogs. I also did free-lance
attributions, authentications and descriptive copy for auction houses.

Regarding this topic, the virtues of a minimalist lifestyle
have been extoled. Although that’s good and fine for some individuals, there
are others to whom objet d’art occupy a more important position.

Consider
living with:

A fragment
from a Roman marble statue.

1st century b.c. -2nd century a.d.

H: 5 inches

Turn this around, and there’s no doubt as to gender. A fragment
yes, but what remains attests to the quality of the original piece, although
we’ll never know if this gal ever looked any better than she does right now.
Not a Canova tush, not a Katherine-Zeta-Jones tush, but a fine tush just the
same.

Ex- David Hendin, private collection. Mr. Hendin, a noted Levantine
scholar, has published numerous references on biblical numismatics. This piece
occupied a spot in his private office for many years.

A socketed bronze fitting from a Roman chariot or cart.

3rd – 4th century a.d.

H: 6 inches

Ex. Richard Pearlman

Finely cast bust of a youth. Curved water bird necks form hooks for reins or tie-downs. Very little wear.

Below that, a small Southern Arabian banded alabaster head.

100 b.c. -100 a.d.

H: 2 inches.

Momma X
kept this on her desk for years as production manager in a publishing house.
Note how the artist used qualities of the stone when considering how to carve
this piece. Like war paint.

A Roman double unguentarium.

1st century b.c. – 1st century a.d.

H: 5 inches

Swirled,
light green glass, 2-reservoir vessel with contrasting dark blue handles and
trailing. Such a pretty presence, most likely used to store and display cosmetics
for a woman of very high rank. Absolutley perfect, no chips. This is the
stunning iridescence that inspired Tiffany and later modern glass masters.

Ex- Merv Griffin collection

I had the opportunity to appraise the Griffin ancient glass
collection. IMO this was the most attractive piece he owned. Nice to have first
glance at it when it came to market. I knew I wanted it, and bid successfully
at auction.

Pacific Islanders gleaned their carbohydrates from the
starchy poi root. But Kauai is the only island in the Hawaiian chain that uses the
‘ring’ type poi pounder. In fact, this graceful example is in red tufa, from
the little island’s northern end, where this type of rock is found. Quite rare.

Ex: Juaquina’s Antiques, Kauai. Purchased from a field
worker in the 1970’s

Found Art:

Pleasing objects are all around us, and often may be picked
up free of charge.

Mother and child?

H: 5 ½ inches

Found while walking in the woods in Northern California.

A friend has a 16th century, life-size Madonna
and child in his home. The features on both heads have been worn from five centuries
of worshipers’ caresses and look pretty much like this. I think I’ll give it to
him some day.

Momma X spotted this along the same path.

What an eye!

H: 4 ½ inches

Years
ago I took this dynamic object to the guy who mounts my art on stands. He gave
me a funny look. When I got his bill, it simply said ‘mount stick’. It’s more than just a stick to me.

H: 15 inches

“Salute to the Sun”

Karl Tutter c. 1930 Germany

H: 9 inches

Most Tutter porcelains wind up painted under the glaze. But
I’m sure glad they left this one white.

Rare as such.

A jade hair ornament.

China c. 3500 b.c.

H: 5 inches

Purchased
within 20 meters of the China/Burma (Myanmar) border. The shop owner tried to
explain that it was a ‘scoop for measuring grain’. Not only was this carved
from one piece of premium jade; it’s also hollow straight through, with holes
drilled near the base. Not very useful as a measuring device, I surmised.

There are pictures depicting ancient Chinese royalty wearing
these on the top of their heads, hair hanging over like palm fronds. Under the
hairdo, a tube like this held the coif in place with what probably resembled a
chopstick, stuck through holes drilled in the sides.

Far eastern art was never my most confident area of
expertise, but I do know how to field-test for jade. The price the shopkeeper quoted
just about covered the price of the gorgeous stone.

Soon after arriving back in the states, I took the piece to
several experts. It’s real! An auction house wanted to estimate this gem at many
multiples of what I paid. But for the amount spent, even I can afford to keep it.

Also met up with Lisabet and her husband on that Asian trip.
Double good fortune.

A Costa Rican Gold Earring c. 600-900 a.d.

Ex. Denver Art Museum

W: 2 ½ inches

Collectors often see these described as nose rings. Not so.

Yes, that’s my pink hand holding it.

Coca de Mer

Seed casing from a palm that grows only in the Seychelle Islands

H: 13 inches

When the early Japanese found these washed up on beaches, they
were considered sacred. This example has been smoothed and polished. I’ve
always wanted one in its natural state with a tangle of thin vines… you got it.
Right in there.

Monday, December 30, 2013

I was brought up in a library. My grandmother was a librarian, my mother was a librarian (although not until my youngest brother was old enough be home alone, and I was in college by then) and my first job was working in a small-town library. I shelved books, dusted shelves and tables, vacuumed, buffed and waxed the floor, and my last summer before college I ran the place for several weeks while the regular librarian was on vacation. I think I’ve told my library stories already, but I may have omitted the part about playing strip poker way back in the stacks with a friend who thought he was Brett Maverick and let me ride his horse in exchange for doing his English homework.

To get to the point, my family didn’t need to buy a whole lot of books because we had access to them already. Most of the books we did buy were “seconds” from the major printing and bookbinding factory where my father worked, and where my first summer job during college was taking coverless books from the machines where the “signatures” were sewn together, separating them and tying off threads as necessary, and putting them on a conveyer belt on their way to be bound.

All this is an attempt at an excuse for the fact that I don’t have many books on my shelves. Well, I do, but more as a matter of storage than accessibility, and they’re mostly fantasy and science fiction accumulated for and by my now-grown sons (not that I haven’t read most of them myself, often out loud to the family.)

The books I do keep nearby are not on shelves. If the saying that you can tell all you need to know abut someone by their books is true, what you can tell about me is that I’m a terrible housekeeper. My books are either in boxes or in stacks on any available flat surface. The erotic books that I’ve edited, and/or contributed to, are mostly in boxes in my closet, trying to stave off the day when my nearly-eight-year-old granddaughter gets too inquisitive. I figure by the time she’s twelve or so I won’t bother to conceal them.

The boxed books that I keep accessible because I may want to read them are mostly on subjects that I might want to write about. I just dug out one called “Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor,” picked up cheap at some fundraising booksale or other, because I’m working on a story set on Dartmoor for an anthology named Daughters of Frankenstein. I have biographies and books on various periods of history; I’ve just been reading about the Mongols of the Golden Horde for a story I should be working on right this minute. And I just noticed one I’d forgotten about, Yoshiwara: Geishas, Courtesans, and Pleasure Quarters of Old Tokyo; I can only hope to some day have cause to use that as background for a story.

I do have treasured books passed down through the family; venerable copies of Louisa May Alcott’s books (she lived and wrote not far from where I grew up,) Alice in Wonderland, Sherlock Holmes, Shakespeare, Grapes of Wrath, Robert Frost, John Donne, and somewhere boxed away are LadyChatterley’s Lover, Fanny Hill, The Pearl, and several books by Colette, all accumulated during my college days. There's also a goodly stack of books by friends on my dresser, a few that I’ve reviewed, altogether too many that I haven’t reviewed yet, although these days most such books are on my computer rather than in stacks.

I still depend on public libraries for much of my reading and research, and now I have access to two major college-town libraries and, through them, every library in the state. I’m still conditioned to regard all library shelves as my own, and these days I don’t have to be the one who dusts them.

Friday, December 27, 2013

Happy Christmas to everyone, I hope the festive season is going well! I had some great books on my wish list and I've been lucky enough to get a few delivered to my Kindle from the lovely Mr H! But, as a little light-hearted fun, here's a few pics from Elf on the Shelf, captions welcome...

Thursday, December 26, 2013

by Giselle Renarde's Christmas Elf

Even sitting on her mother's couch on Christmas night, Giselle can visualize the bookshelf in her living room. It hasn't changed in years. It's stocked with a good deal of fiction, but far too many university-era reads. Why? Because she revisits them every so often? Nah. She didn't read most of those books in the first place. How she earned herself a degree, she'll never know.

Giselle wasn't always a bad student. In fact, throughout elementary school she was an overachiever. High school? Even better. She left her final year with a 96.8% average... or a 98.6% average. She can't quite remember. Her days since then have represented a slow process of stupification.

Or maybe "slow" is the wrong word. A student's first year at university can be a difficult transition. Giselle went from big fish in a small, coddling high school to an absolute nobody at a prestigious research university.

Major depression hit. She cried every day. She cried all the time. She cried on the subway, in the library, in the bathroom. Nobody ever asked what was wrong. Nobody. Not once.

And so four years went by. Giselle attended classes during the day and worked at night to pay tuition, rent, food... books. When she arrived home at her tiny bachelor apartment, usually after midnight, she read her texts and wrote her papers as her little tabby curled up beside her.

She tried hard, but not hard enough to earn the A's she saw in high school. In fact, a B was cause for celebration. Mostly, she struggled to be okay with those dreaded C's. She didn't have time to beat herself up too much.

Last week, Giselle found a quirky Canadian TV show on Netflix. Her sisters had told her "Being Erica," about a girl in her thirties who undergoes an unusual form a time-travel therapy, would appeal to her. And it did. There was an episode where the main character, Erica, expresses concern that she's one of those people who peaked in high school.

Wednesday, December 25, 2013

My
fingers skitter like spiders over the book spines as I look for the particular
one I came upstairs to find. “The
Multi-Orgasmic man” by Mantak Chia, “Think on These Things” by Krishnamurti, “The Mystical
Kaballah” by Dion Fortune, “Fire” by Lisabet Sarai (signed by the author), “My Secret Garden” by Nancy
Friday, “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury.I’m not seeing it, the paperback libretto of “Gotterdammerung” I wanted
to read when I’m snacking on the DVD from the library.I think I have another print out of it
somewhere in a little binder.

Its
been harder for me to find the books I want since I got these nice bookcases at
Salvation Army for fifty bucks a while back.
I used to have all my books arranged by genre on their own shelves, but
after unshelving and reshelving them at random I find its nicer to be out of
order. It’s like fumbling my way through
a crowd of acquaintances and old friends and even some strangers looking for a
certain person. Its more fun to search
and you discover things on the way. Occasionally
I toss a book behind my shoulder onto the guest bed promising myself I’ll look
at it.

I
wonder what a guest in this room would think if they looked over my books. When I visit people’s homes, which isn’t very
often, I always sneak a good look at their book shelf. If they have books. A house without books seems somehow to me to
be lacking soul, like a kitchen without dirty dishes. You learn a lot about people and what’s in
their head and heart by seeing what they read.
Any guest looking at my bookcases late at night while the house is
asleep would get a good cross section about what I think about and who I
admire. I would love to believe that
such a person might think I could be interesting.

The
libretto will be on the lower shelf where all the tall books and printouts are
piled, so I start thumbing through that stack. Between a stack of software
manuals there’s an old looking manila folder.
Maybe this.

It’s
a print out from an old computer dot matrix line printer, so old that the
single staple in the corner is rusted.

“The Sorceress.”

Shit.

I
sit down on the floor and read the first couple of paragraphs:

MAN

Quiet Down! Quiet Down!

(all attention is focused on the man with the vase)

Pu Yi! Li Chen! You know this custom. Pu Yi, you place the vase on your head and together take five steps without losing the vase. If you complete the five steps your marriage will be blessed with good luck.

I
remember this. I wrote this late at
night in the photo studio we had in the New Yorker Hotel in 1993, when I was a photographer, back in my
religious days. There was a celebration
for some special holy day or other, God knows what, and I wanted to do
something more than just take pictures.
I wrote a play, a kind of musical. One of the very first things I ever
tried to write. I was so proud of this play.

Well,
I can see all the little steals here and there, from Fiddler on the Roof and
even King Lear. My proud effort was
received with a kind of embarrassed cough.
They never put it on, which hurt me at the time. But in those days entertainers in my
religious sect were very territorial; they had their own ways of putting on an
evening. Photographers in the end are only house servants.

Twenty
years ago, it was. It makes me laugh -
whatever would those very pious folks have thought of the kind of stuff I write
now?

But
me - I kept this. Moreover, I kept the
flame.

As
I thumb through it I realize I’ve
forgotten the story completely. Twenty
years is long enough for a cold reading.

It
turns out it’s a story about a poor but good man named Pu Yi in ancient China (named for an
actual poet). The story begins with a
wedding ceremony as Pu Yi is married to a young woman named Li Chen. He doesn’t
know she’s a benign but fearsome sorceress.
On their wedding night she consults with her spirit helpers and tell
them she is going straight and will live as a mortal woman. She has a dragon bedspread with an elaborate
design that is the talisman of her clan and has powerful magic. Thinking its a dowry, Pu Yi sells it the next
day to the evil Governor Chang in order to get cash to set up a family farm. Chang recognizes it as an object of power and
realizes Pu Yi is married to the powerful and beautiful witch he has always
coveted for a wife. He announces he is
coming to their house for tea the next day.
Li Chen goes wild when she finds out he sold the bed spread and they have
a falling out just as the Governor arrives. The Governor gets Pu Yi drunk and
kidnaps Li Chen. She spurns him and he
imprisons her but she is freed by her guardian demons and the help of a thief. Pu Yi thinks she ran off with the wealthy
governor by choice and is broken hearted but still wants to see her. He and the Governor fight with swords and the
Governor is killed. The governor’s
attendant's force Pu Yi to secretly take his place because they want to keep
their jobs and had privately hated the Governor for his violence and
corruption.

The
emperor of China dies without children and the bird of paradise flies out and chooses his
successor. The bird lands on Li Chen and
she becomes the new Empress of Heaven.

She
summons Governor Chang for a reckoning, thinking that he has killed Pu Yi and
tosses him into the dungeon. That night
she comes to the cell, intending to accuse him and kill him with magic. During this nearly fatal encounter Pu Yi
reveals himself and they’re reunited.
Happy ending. HEA.

Okay,
Shakespeare it ain’t. But not bad for a
beginner and much more ambitious than anything I write these days.

Sitting
on the floor of the guest room, thumbing through these pages, time just goes
right on flying by. In another twenty years I may know what to do with this.

Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Ever since I was able to hold a book in my teeny hands I've been a reader. I suppose I was lucky in the fact that both my parents and both my sisters shared the love of the printed word. Our tastes of course varied greatly, but there was always a sense of sharing when we'd discuss the books we'd just read.
Although I poo-pooed my little sister's choice of Enid Blyton as her favourite author - I was more into Edgar Rice Burroughs and the adventures of Dan Dare - I have to admit to pinching the odd copy of The Famous Five for a quick read. Nowadays Miss Blyton is considered by some to have been politically incorrect and even a bit racist in her observation of some characters, but in those good old days when we weren't aware of such things it was just rollicking good fun. Teasing Georgina because she preferred pants to skirts and wanted to be called George was just that - good fun. I've wondered since just how well adjusted Georgina would have been later in life.
Anyone remember Dennis Wheatly? He wrote stories with a paranormal twist which I enjoyed immensely, but if ever there was a homophobe it was our Dennis. At the age of ten I didn't quite get the inferences, but later when my own sexual identity became clearer to me, I worried about passages about "corrupt Nazi officers inflicting repulsive caresses on young men". For a while there I equated villains with homosexuals which I think was his intent. Oh well, you do tend to get over these things after a while.
Like Lisabet, when Phil and I made our move to San Diego recently, the apartment being smaller than our house, I had to ditch a ton of books - well, I gave them to the library or the Goodwill - so not really ditching them, but boy, it was hard to decide what to part with. The good thing is I can replace them with ebook copies on my Nook, so they're not entirely lost to me - but as cliched as this has become, there really isn't anything that can replace the feel of a book, the smell of ink and paper, even the mustiness of older copies. Books have been a major part of my life, more important than films or the telly certainly, and I get to work in a bookstore five days a week. Life is good.
Sorry, this has been a bit rambly. Must be the time of year. Merry Christmas all!

Monday, December 23, 2013

By Lisabet Sarai

I believe I've written before about my
experience moving from the US to Asia. It took eighteen months for us
to purge our houseful of possessions accumulated over more than
twenty years, to decide what we couldn't bear to discard and had to
bring with us. Those exhausting months made me vow to travel light
for the remainder of my life, to avoid acquiring new material things
and to jettison unnecessary possessions whenever possible. (A vow
that's surprisingly tough to keep – but that's another blog post!)

Decisions about some items were easy.
We didn't have any furniture worth saving. Appliances wouldn't run
here anyway, due to the difference in electrical standards. Lots of
what we'd accumulated only made sense if we owned a house that would
need continuing maintenance, and we were pretty sure we'd never be in
that position again.

Books, though – we had thousands of
books. Maybe as many as ten thousand, if you included technical books
used in our careers. Of course books weigh a great deal and take up
significant space. And you can't really consider them en masse,
as a category. You've got to examine each title and choose
whether you care enough to keep it.

There were some volumes, though, that
hardly required any deliberation. I had books I'd been carrying with
me since childhood, or at least my early teens, and I wasn't going to
ditch them just because I was about to move 12,000 kilometers. They'd
had a place on my bookshelves in my college dorms, in my first
apartment, in the group houses where I lived during graduate school,
in the apartments my husband and I rented before we bought our house.
These books had made a huge impression on me when I first read them,
and I didn't want to give them up.

They're still on my bookshelves, half a
world away from my place of birth and almost half a century since
that event. In some cases (I realized when I pulled them out to write
this post), they're not in very good condition. But then fifty years
is a long time.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and
Through the Looking Glass by Louis Carroll

With eighty-nine illustrations by John
Tenniel and four color plates by Edwin John Prittie

The John C. Winston Company, 1923

My family acquired this very soon after
I was born, as part of a package deal that included a dozen
“children's classics” along with the Encyclopedia Americana
(which by the way remained on my shelves until we left the US,
despite dating from 1953). The binding is broken on this volume and
the inside covers are moisture-stained, but otherwise this favorite
from my childhood is in remarkably good shape. I read these two tales
over and over, fascinated by the weird logic and nonsense verse. At
one point, I could recite the entire first chapter of Alice's
Adventures from memory. However, I always preferred the darker
and more dream-like Through the Looking Glass. Chess is a far
more challenging game than cards.

The Complete Sherlock Holmes by
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1953

The date on this two volume hardcover
set makes me wonder whether it too was acquired when I was born. If
so, my parents showed remarkable foresight, as I probably didn't
start reading Conan Doye's stories until I was ten or eleven. Shared
reading formed a strong bond between my father and me, and we were
both dedicated Sherlock Holmes aficionados. Of course I admired
Holmes' intellect, aspiring to the same acuteness of observation and
deductive facility. In addition, though, the brilliant, moody,
anti-social detective stirred feelings that I now recognize as
prepubescent lust. All my life I've been drawn to men of dark genius.
Intelligence has always been far more likely to arouse me than
physical attractiveness. I wonder if it all started with Holmes.

The Complete Plays of Gilbert and
Sullivan

The Modern Library - 1940?

This book actually belonged to my
mother. According to the inscription, it was a gift from her older
sister on the occasion of her high school graduation. Although it
wasn't on my personal shelves as I was growing up, it was always
available for reference in one of the family bookcases. I'm pretty
sure I took ownership of it when I went away to college. By that
time, my mother was a functioning alcoholic and I was on the down
slide into anorexia. Nobody would have noticed it was gone.

The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by
Alan Garner

Ballantine Books, 1960

Most likely you've never heard of this
book. It's a fantasy, aimed at what would now be called
the "young adult" audience. The book is set in the Welsh countryside
and features prophecies, wizards, ghouls, trolls, dwarves and a brave
brother and sister battling to save the world from evil. I still
recall my first reading of this tale. Colin and Susan, the young
protagonists, flee across a snow covered land, hiding from the flocks
of crows wheeling overhead, spies for the wicked creature trying to
recapture the Weirdstone. I felt true terror at their desperate
situation. I could vividly imagine the sense of exposure, the fear of
leaving tracks in the vast, open expanse of snow, the black patterns
of the ill-omened birds against the bleak winter sky.

I recently reread the book, curious to
see if it still could affect me. Of course the reactions of a
sixty-year-old will never be as intense as those of a child, but the
story still managed to evoke flickers of excitement and fear.

Ghosts by Ursula Perrin

Bantam Books, 1967

The date on this novel means I couldn't
have read it until I was in high school. I have no recollection
whatsoever where it came from. Perhaps I found it at a yard sale;
there's a price written in pencil inside the cover (40 cents).

Ghosts is a coming of age story,
a dream-like reminiscence of a teen aged girl's sexual awakening. I
haven't re-read it in decades and I probably should, for it left an
indelible impression on me. I doubt it is sexually explicit, but I
know it captured the thrill, the confusion, the doubt, that surrounds
one's first love/lust (as a teen, the two are inextricably
intertwined). I fiercely identified with Eleanor – I was feeling
exactly the same things.

I'm often moved to try to capture the
heady, terrifying, overwhelming experience of teen lust myself. These
days, however, you probably couldn't publish a book like Ghosts,
because the protagonists were
under eighteen.

I
consider this a great loss.

Lilith by J.R. Salamanca

Simon & Shuster, 1961

This paperback I've retrieved from the
shelves can't be the original that so fascinated me, despite its age.
The inside cover lists a price of $2.50, penciled in above another
annotation of 40 (cents?). Obviously this book has been around.

However, I know I read Lilith as
a teen. This haunting tale of obsession captured me from the first
sentence. “I grew up in a small Southern town which was different
from most other towns because it contained an insane asylum.” I've
always been intrigued by madness, perhaps because my father was a
psychiatrist, perhaps because some members of my family occasionally
acted insane. Salamanca's schizophrenic heroine Lilith conjures an
exquisite and terrible other world. Little by little, her therapist
Victor finds himself drawn into the dangerous but seductive realm
created by her brilliant, disturbed mind.

Did I have an intuition then that I'd
spend months in a psychiatric institution myself, before I reached
the age of twenty? This seems unlikely, yet I like to play with the
notion. Certainly, the juxtaposition between insanity and eroticism
appealed to me. I've always suspected that “normality” is a dull
set of requirements forced upon us by society. Being crazy might be a
lot more interesting (though I wouldn't recommend my
experience in the asylum).

In any case, I guess I lost my original
copy of Lilith somewhere during my peregrinations. When I
happened upon a used copy, I snapped it up. Because the book
definitely deserves a permanent place on my shelves.

***

These days, after I read a print book,
I tend to get rid of it. I'm trying to keep my vow, for one thing.
For another, very few books I encounter have the impact of these
early reads. I know that's partly because I was so young. After six
decades of non-stop reading, I am a lot more difficult to impress.

As long as I have bookshelves, though,
the titles above will have a spot – at least until they crumble to
dust. And then, I'll probably go out and replace them.

Thursday, December 19, 2013

The topic this fortnight is music so it is fitting that I
begin with a song. This is my swan song to Oh Get A Grip, meaning that this is
my final post.

When Lisabet invited me to join the OGG blog, her timing was
perfect. I had just returned to writing erotica in the summer of 2012 after a
five-year hiatus. Writing blog entries
on topics of interest to erotica and romance readers gave me the opportunity to
read contemporary erotica written by my peers and to explore the subject of
writer's craft more thoroughly.

I think the idea of this blog is exceptional: to ask a group
of writers to contribute their thoughts on the same topic over a
fortnight. I was fascinated by the different approaches people took: whether it
was the imaginative fiction of C. Sanchez Garcia, Jean Roberta's poignant
posts about her history, Giselle Renarde's simpatico Canadian takes, Sacchi
Green's and Lisabet Sarai's notes in reference to current erotica and the
publishing industry, Daddy X's filthy and amusing flashers, Lily Harlem's and
Desiree Holt's excerpts from recently published works and their positive and
playful attitude to their writing, JP Bowie's anecdotes about various mishaps
and incidents. I didn't always comment on every post, but I was always
listening and learning. I thank my fellow bloggers for their insights,
creativity, warmth and friendship.

And I thank you readers for your close attention and
interest in my posts. I'm going to go back to solo blogging in 2014. I'm using
the opportunity to pump up the poetry posts on my literary blog and shall be
exploring various topics relevant to contemporary poetry. Hope to see you
there. I also blog about sex, polyamory, culture and art over on Tumblr. You
can find me on Twitter @KikiFolle & I update my site with current
publications in fiction & poetry.

Just so I remain on topic, I have to say that music is an
important inspiration for my writing, just as art is. Here's a link to a post I
wrote in response to the subject of playlists on the blog of Canadian writer,
Dani Couture.

I wish you all lust and love for 2014. I shall continue to
read and follow Oh Get A Grip and I'm sure I'll have a saucy comment or two to
add. Thanks once again to Lisabet for including me in this adventure. It's been
a helluva ride.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

I remember, as a little kid, asking my father why songs
always focused on ‘mushy stuff’ like love and kisses. Obviously, this was well before
my little boy libido became fully operative ;>). He advised me that music
was all about dancing and holding a girl. And dancing often led to love. It
sufficed as an answer, for a while.

By the time I reached thirteen, having a girlfriend meant
something quite wonderful. I was talked into going to my first school dance
about then, and lo and behold! They encouraged us to hold each other. Holy shit, this was a pretty good deal. I figured
I’d happened upon just about the greatest pastime in the world, and set out to
become the best dancer I could be.

Throughout high school, I won quite a few dance contests. Girls
who liked to get up on stage and shake what-she-got often wanted me as a
partner. Even if we didn’t nail first place, we’d always make it to the finals.
It served me well with the young ladies; I must say my dad had something going
after all.

San Francisco’s party scene during the 60’s and 70’s almost
always included dancing. I kept up my chops, out there showing others how it’s
done. Well, speaking of done—yes, now that’s all done. The mind wants to jive,
but the body says no.

I have to wonder how much our taste in music, or for that
matter any art, relies on nostalgia. Earlier discussion around this topic explored
synesthesia, the phenomenon that intertwines color, touch and auditory
sensations. My memories tend to carry something I can only call a ‘flavor’. I
suppose sense of place, sights, sounds, temperatures and drugs ingested engage our receptors as
all-encompassing textures, moods, impressions, combining into a sensory mélange
attributable to a particular time in life.

With that in mind, I offer you:

Aftermath, 70’s StyleCopyright 2012 Daddy X

The dancing had been spontaneous. Donny Hathaway laid out his
soul in “The Ghetto.” Marvin Gaye, was
givin’ it up on the vinyl 33’s. Havin’ a party. Boz Scaggs with his class band.
King Curtis and Champion Jack Dupree, Live at Montreaux.

Sneaky Pete, drinkin’
water, get in the groove. When you gets ready everybody move…

The smell of pot permeated the apartment. Bottles of all
sorts lay about in various degrees of empty. Many revelers had abandoned
accepted social decorum and entered free-form dance expressions—raging,
rocked-out hormones, swaying and jiving anywhere offering room to dig it. Somebody
brought some Quaaludes.

James Brown told it like it was.

Get up! Get into it!
Get involved!

Everybody rockin’.

A tall guy in a ponytail and tweed jacket caught my
libidinous attention, though he didn’t appear the dancing type. I heard he was
a poet—Evan something. He spoke with a natural confidence, conducting
conversations of various topics with numerous revelers. An engaging presence, seemingly
far beyond the others in intellectual acuity. Evan wore no facial hair. For all
these things the man stood out.

Over the course of the evening, Evan had become, if not the
life of the party, its soul. He’d engaged easily with strangers, interjecting
common sense whenever the conversation became too far-out. I’d been lusting
after him all night, my pussy moist and swollen with his words, concepts and
chiseled looks.

He’s a poetry man...

Dancing and flirting long exhausted, maybe eight or ten
holdouts lay around in various stages of nodding off. We’d explored esoteric,
important and poignant subjects for hours. Now we’re on the sofa, my legs
across Evan’s lap. He and I the only ones still conscious, speaking in hushed
tones so as not to wake the others.

But now I sense his touch under my skirt, fingers pressing
into my slick mound. Peering around to see that everyone’s still asleep, I push
back into his hand.

‘It makes me fee ee ee
eel …. aa alll right…’

He stretches alongside me, turning my face to the sofa back.
“Shhh,” he whispers. “Bite into the pillow.”

Lifting a knee allows him access. Undies pulled aside, he
slides into my grateful pussy from behind. His arm circles my waist. Gentle
fingers find their way between my labia. We engage in a slow, silent challenge
of a fuck, trying not to alert anyone of our indiscretion.

I emerge from my orgasm to the sound of a phonograph needle skipping
regularly at the end of an album … thup …
thup … my dry, whimpering mouth full of soggy cushion. His breath warms my ear with his own release.

To our surprise, the music begins again. Boz Scaggs.

Angel Lady … Come just
in time…

Behind us, a pattering of applause erupts unexpected.

A 200wc version of “Aftermath 70’s Style” is in ERWA’s 2012
Treasure Chest. There’s very little reference to music and dancing in that
version.

For this version, I’d like to thank:

Donnie Hathaway (deceased)

King Curits (deceased)

Champion Jack Dupree (deceased)

Marvin Gaye (deceased)

James Brown (deceased)

Phoebe Snow

Boz Scaggs

For the sound and feel of their lyrics, no matter how badly
I’ve fucked them up.

FLASH DADDYDaddy X

BEST LESBIAN EROTICA OF THE YEARSacchi Green

RENOVATIONS Annabeth Leong

COMING TOGETHER PRESENTS C. Sanchez-Garcia

Resurrection by Ashe Barker

500 years of history and a twist in the tale

UNDER THE SIGN OF THE DRAGON Jean Roberta

A new twist on King Arthur

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